Abstract
Background: Undergraduate nursing students are vulnerable to stressful university learning environments and poor working conditions in clinical rotations. This can result in students leaving nursing programs or abandoning the profession following graduation. As a result, the health-related quality of life of nursing students is an important indicator to monitor student quality of life adequacy. Preventing premature student nurses' departure from the profession is necessary to reduce the nursing shortage. Objective: To describe the body of knowledge about the health-related quality of life for undergraduate nursing students during their qualification process. Methods: This was a narrative review through a six-database search, including Cochrane, CINAHL, Pubmed, Medline, PsycINFO and Livivio, from between January 1990 and June 2018, with updates in the search followed until November 2019. To assess study quality, the STROBE checklist was used. Results: Eight studies were included in a narrative synthesis. All studies were of cross-sectional design, and none included follow-up procedures. Most of the studies recruited participants from nursing courses and only one study recruited students from a national register. Sample sizes ranged from 110 individuals to 4,033 participants in the register-based study. Common health-related dimensions evaluated included stress, social support, mental health, fatigue, quality of life, and drug abuse. Stress, the most commonly studied dimension, was associated with clinical placements, final exams, and non-prescribed drugs. Social support networks were positively associated with coping abilities and self-esteem. Conclusion: There is low-quality evidence of the impact of nursing courses upon student health-related dimensions (stress, self-esteem, health-related behaviors). Nurse educators should be aware of these associations and support routine screening of students and their health-related dimensions. Interventions, such as consultation and study redesign, might increase the level of health-related dimensions. Nursing schools should further collaborate to investigate these associations and tailored interventions to positively affect health-related dimensions in nursing students.
Highlights
Nurses representing more than half of the global health professional workforce [1] are essential for healthcare systems to provide health services to their communities, including emergency services and mental health.Complaints about poor working conditions, mandatory overtime, recruitment and retention problems are common in the nursing community [2]
We aim to describe the body of knowledge about the health-related quality of life for undergraduate nursing students during their qualification process
This review of the current evidence about the health status of undergraduate nurses and the effects of a nursing education program on perceived health-related indicators revealed minor associations of the health status with stress and clinical setting, the stress level and self-esteem, health-related behaviors, and the way in which students selected a career in nursing
Summary
Nurses representing more than half of the global health professional workforce (estimated 21 million) [1] are essential for healthcare systems to provide health services to their communities, including emergency services and mental health.Complaints about poor working conditions, mandatory overtime, recruitment and retention problems are common in the nursing community [2]. The result is a global shortfall of approximately 9 million nurses with an expected 8 million vacant nursing positions by 2030 [3, 4] This deficit is exacerbated, as the elderly population will almost double from 12% to 22% by 2050 [5]. There is a clear conflict between nurse expectations about their professional role and their ability to fulfill this role at work. Undergraduate nursing students are vulnerable to stressful university learning environments and poor working conditions in clinical rotations. This can result in students leaving nursing programs or abandoning the profession following graduation. Preventing premature student nurses' departure from the profession is necessary to reduce the nursing shortage
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